


Cognitive Dissonance Theory

by mobilisinmobili



Series: Double-0-Everything and Nothing at All [4]
Category: Alex Rider - Anthony Horowitz
Genre: Blood and Violence, Emotional Manipulation, Friendship, Illegal Activities, Light Angst, Moral Dilemmas, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Trauma, Slice of Life, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:02:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28317918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mobilisinmobili/pseuds/mobilisinmobili
Summary: It was a carefully constructed borderline obsessive lie he had desperately clung to in his darkest hours as a means of survival, doused  with selfish recklessness. All it took was; a count of accidental treason, a bottle of good whiskey, and a night of feral curiosity for it all to go up in flames..Or.The truth hits Alex like a bullet to the heart
Relationships: Alan Blunt & Alex Rider, Ben "Fox" Daniels & Alex Rider, K-Unit & Alex Rider, Tom Harris & Alex Rider, Tulip Jones & Alex Rider, Yassen Gregorovich & Alex Rider
Series: Double-0-Everything and Nothing at All [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1754563
Comments: 3
Kudos: 22





	Cognitive Dissonance Theory

**Author's Note:**

> So many unfinished wips so of course I just had to add another!  
> \---  
> Set roughly a year and some months from "TEOME" in early August.

A year and some months from the hellscape of Raqqa had brought Alex back full circle into the monotony of un-rostered tedium. Weeks upon weeks of what had been and was continuing to grow to be a 'normal' 8 to 5, trapping the eighteen year old super spy in an almost karmic illustration of what he had suspected was Ian's occupational life all those years ago. Just mountains of paperwork and reports to be turned in properly and on time for what exactly? He wasn't entirely sure of sometimes, but Matthews was a stickler for due dates and rules so Alex trudged along, doing his best to stay out of the man's way. 

Especially with the lingering chaos of the 'Raqqa' op  _ still  _ being 'handled' nearly a year later. And with the Quantum scandal branching out through the grapevine that was British intelligence and defense, he along with Jones was still wading through the murky mass of public criticism and calls for answers and transparency and all the fun  _ classified  _ things. 

And then there was Paris no more than nine months ago and its _ fallout _ . He felt goosebumps rise at the prickles of  _ those  _ memories.

Needless to say, tensions were high, but not as high as they had been in the months between Raqqa and Paris. Better but not by too much, and he knew better than to push. He kept his head down and did his part for the better half of the past  _ unending _ months, staying constructively busy. Playing drill sergeant had been fun but Matthews hadn't exactly been  _ pleased  _ about him throwing a wrench in the Spy Games and the other plans that had been made  _ months  _ before. Willingly or not, it had ultimately been Alex's fault for being reckless and getting injured, and all it did was feed the steady flame of Matthew's distrust and judgement against him, as he had so much stated during the Internal Review meeting.

Which was all the more reason for keeping his distance and laying low. So it was with the  _ utmost  _ honesty that he could say that he  _ genuinely  _ didn't mean to overhear what he overheard. He really  _ hadn't  _ known that Matthews had been in Jones' office and not the other way around. Should he have knocked? Maybe. But he hadn't even had to crack the door further than her assistant had accidentally left it. Those millimeters were all that were needed for him to get a direct earful of what had  _ sounded  _ like a bear shouting match, and Tulip, for what she was worth, wasn't backing down at all. Matthews was contending with the wrong person over the wrong topic, which just  _ happened  _ to be  _ him _ . 

They were arguing about him. Or at least, he was getting dragged in to whatever mess they had been discussing before, which he had a sneaking suspicion was the SAS which probably meant Raqqa.

But  _ why _ ? 

While there was still quite a bit of clean up left from the aftermath of the  _ utter  _ fuck up, he thought he'd heard the last of it after the first month. There was only  _ so  _ far and  _ so  _ long they could yell at him for. Or Matthews could at least. And while Mrs. Jones had never explicitly lost her nerve and shouted at him as Matthews had done  _ several  _ times before, she had her own way of expressing her ire. Which was why he was stuck in the  _ awful  _ purgatory of office work buried under the ridiculous amount of paperwork. 

So why now? 

Why again? Surely there were bigger problems to figure out. 

There was  _ bound  _ to be new threats, and this sort of ruminative thinking just  _ wasn't  _ characteristic of the upper leadership. Jones hadn't done so and Blunt was never the type to do so either. And while he couldn't really say he knew Matthews, he had a pretty good feeling that the man wasn't one for that sort of behavior either. He  _ coul _ dn't be. There were just  _ too many  _ things to juggle to be stuck on one problem for too long. But who knew? Maybe the upper leadership were more clever than he gave them credit for. Maybe  _ this  _ was what really happened in the shadows, arguments over things that happened  _ months  _ ago to be picked apart behind closed doors. 

Which meant that he was eves dropping, or more  _ technically _ , he was breaking the OSA. Listening in to confidential meetings between the deputy and head of MI6, a certain ticket back into yet  _ another  _ IR meeting and probably an actual hearing under the intelligence and defense court circuits. He should have just walked away when he heard his name the first time. But curiousity was a damn bitch and he just  _ couldn't  _ tear himself away. He needed to know. 

Was there something  _ else _ he had done? Was there going to be another meeting? Was  _ that  _ why Matthews seemed to flat out  _ avoid  _ him these past few weeks? 

He  _ should  _ have walked away but it was just  _ too  _ easy...

\---

_ " _ And what of his status? His injuries, hmm?! He isn't as indestructible as you've both illusioned yourselves to believe!" 

"There is no  _ illusion _ . Believe me when I say that we both knew just how human Alex was- _ is _ . That was a sacrifice that needed to be made-" 

Matthews scoffed in clear disgusted derision. 

"Do you hear yourself right now, Mrs. Jones?! He was fourteen when you and Blunt nabbed him.  _ Fourteen _ ! And he was only sixteen when he deployed. Spent his seventeenth in a  _ US Military base  _ as a  _ captured hostile _ ! This isn't the type of sacrifice a teenager should be making!"

"He is a  _ bona fide  _ SI agent and SF operative, Matthews. He's properly passed the tests and gone through the training. And if you have a  _ problem  _ with that, you can speak with the foreign secretary or the PM himself. This matter is out of your hands whether you like it or not." 

"He is a  _ child _ !" Matthews spluttered, throwing his hands up in a fit of fury.

"He is  _ eighteen _ . With four years of  _ active  _ experience. You said so yourself during the last meeting. He has exposure to skill specific training that no one else can match." She hissed evenly. 

_ Sharply, _ like a scalpel in Three's hands. Alex knew  _ exactly  _ what she was talking about, and as much as he had hated to admit it during the meeting months back and still hated to admit now, he  _ did  _ have an  _ unrivaled _ training in certain skills that Special Intelligence just  _ couldn't  _ match no matter how hard they tried. 

They weren't a terrorist organization after all. They  _ did  _ have limits. And they didn't have world class paradigms like Gregorovich or Three or Ross. 

They had rules and regulations, something Matthews seemed  _ very  _ keen on following from his argument of ethics. 

"He's passed with flying colors. You cannot deny that. The physical and the mental evaluations. He is fit for duty." 

"He needs more time!"

"We've got less than a month left and decisions need to be made!" 

"Then tell Mission Control to get their act together and come up with an  _ actual  _ possibility! The current projections are  _ unacceptable  _ regardless of who the hell we  _ may  _ or may not be able to capture! I  _ cannot  _ and  _ will not  _ sign off on this until his safety is locked down. End of discussion."

Alex was long gone by the time Matthews marched angrily out, slamming the door behind him in a fit.

* * *

The waning warmth of early August had given way slowly, letting the temperature drop steadily. Still nice enough to wander around the city, maybe even grab a bite to eat outside under the sun and characteristic clouds.

It was what Tom had told him the day he had come home early enough to actually sit down to and have dinner. That had been somewhere around the first half of the last week of July. 

But there was work to be done. Heaps and heaps. So he allowed himself to ignore the warning bells going off in his head every time Tom would mention that he looked like he needed some more sleep than he was getting in his workaholic binge. 

It was  _ necessary _ , and  _ much  _ to his chagrin, he was right.

It was a good thing he had followed his gut because it let him know just how turbulent the waters had become in just over the weekend itself.

Much too much for what would have been a Monday morning surprise for sure, especially with how behind schedule they really were; playing a stressful game of catch up. 

He had been selected oddly against Matthew’s seeming disapproval of it all. But as for  _ why _ , he couldn’t say. He had no clue, and was just as lost as he had been weeks ago when he’d overheard the conversation between Jones and Matthews. 

So he ploughed on, focusing on the everest mounds of work before giving in. "I'm clocking out early today. Pretty sure I've lost at  _ least _ a pint from all the papercuts I've got today alone." 

Ben rolled his eyes at the welcomed distraction from his own paper stack. 

"All that training and it's the _ papercuts _ ?!" 

Alex couldn't hold back the snort of amusement. The man had been getting  _ unsettlingly  _ good at breaking through his unwittingly held tension recently. To a point where the fact that he'd been unwittingly holding on to tension  _ wasn _ 't the primary point of concern. 

But it wasn't to say he didn't appreciate it. He did, albeit with a healthy amount of wariness. 

He was getting  _ predictable _ , and in their line of work, predictability was unacceptable. 

He'd need to fix that…

"Four years, countless terrorist organizations and ops later, and it  _ would  _ be death by papercuts that take me." 

"Jones would have an aneurism."

"Matthews would probably be pretty pleased, all things considered." Alex shot back. "He'd have been wrong though. It  _ wouldn't  _ be my recklessness in the end after all." He shrugged with a dry chuckle. And if his tired eyes  _ weren't _ fooling him, he could have  _ sworn  _ he saw a brief surge of concern flit across Ben's face at the off handed joke. 

It had the embers of the tension he had held sparking back to life. 

Did the man know? Was he privy to whatever the hell it was that had gone on in Jones' office? Matthews certainly trusted Ben more. That much was obvious. Or maybe it had been Jones? Maybe she had told the man something. Something pertaining to  _ him _ . It made sense. Ben  _ was _ his partner after all. And it was clear that he deeply cared for Alex outside of work, as  _ Ben  _ and not  _ Agent Daniels _ . He and K-Unit both. Like a small chaotic little family. And Jones was bound to know. And if Jones knew, Matthews probably did too. But it hadn't sounded like personal concern was the main factor. 

No. 

Whatever it was, had Matthews genuinely  _ angry _ and while the man may not have seemed to like him very much, he knew that the fact that he was still an active agent meant that Mathews cared about him, to a degree. 

So it wasn't just  _ concern _ . Or it didn't feel like it, anyway. What it  _ did  _ feel like was antagonism. Like the man was angry with him for something he had done. Like he'd made some sort of mistake. 

But he just  _ couldn't  _ understand why no one was telling him what the hell he had done wrong, letting the sword dangle over his head in some weird objective of keeping the secret. 

And now with  _ Ben  _ possibly in the know as well, the feeling of paranoid tension just grew, solidifying his resolve to go through with his decision. 

"Anywho-" he veered back into safer waters. "I'll see you Sunday? Koala said he'll be able to make it too. I think he said he was kipping over at Eagle's place for the weekend." 

Ben nodded, stretching with a yawn. "Sounds good. Wolf said he wanted Chinese." 

"Cool." Alex gave a mock salute. "Don't work too hard, Foxy."

"Will do. Get some rest, alright?  _ Actual  _ rest!" 

"Yes,  _ dad _ ." He leveled Ben with one last dry smile,easily side-stepping the highlighter that went flying past his head before turning and walking out, closing the door quietly behind him with a  _ click. _

**Author's Note:**

> If you are following along chronologically in the series, "CDT" will be the last arc fic before "OMGAM"!


End file.
